Accurate insurance information is necessary for payment and claims processing for pharmacy services. If a patient does not have accurate and up-to-date insurance information on file with the pharmacy, prescription fills may be delayed, leading to additional wait times, drugs returned to stock, and additional effort from pharmacy staff to address the issue (such as, for example, phone calls, checking eligibility, etc.).
In existing methods, when a person receives a new or updated insurance card, he or she must give the pharmacy the new or updated card information for data entry in order to use that insurance. The primary method for providing this information to the pharmacy is to physically present the card to staff and wait while the data is entered. One problem with this method is the inconvenience from increased wait times and/or additional trips to the store.
In some other existing methods, patients read the insurance information to pharmacy staff over a telephone. One problem with this method is that there are thousands of differing card layouts, and without being able to see the card, it is difficult for the pharmacy staff to identify which fields are needed from the card. Often, patients are not familiar with insurance card data will not know which fields to give the staff, resulting in difficulties and inaccuracies when exchanging the information. A need therefore exists for a more convenient and versatile system and method for entering new or updating existing insurance information.